How NOT to Train Your Dragon
by Phlinn Nightley
Summary: What would YOU do if you were a Viking, risking your life every day so that you can try to bring less chaos to an I've-Always-Been-Chaotic-And-Always-Will-Be type of world? What would YOU do if you had dragons slumbering in every corner of the island you lived in, some peaceful, but most ready to take the life of anything that comes into their view?
1. Epilogue

Epilogue:

What would YOU do if you were a Viking, risking your life every day so that you can try to bring less chaos to an I've-Always-Been-Chaotic-And-Always-Will-Be type of world? What would YOU do if you had dragons slumbering in every corner of the island you lived in, some peaceful, but most ready to take the life of anything that comes into their view. Some are as small as the nail on your big toe and some seem to take up one third of the ocean with their immensity.

My name is Eclipse. The Island of Berk is where I take refuge and where I call home, and I'm SOMEWHAT proud of it. What I mean by somewhat is that I'm SOMEWHAT proud of the people who live in it, though sometimes they can be a bit demanding and ignorant at times. They don't think before they act, and they act idiotically.

We're the Hooligan Tribe; we evidently never, EVER, under ALL CIRCUMSTANCES, regret the way we act, even if we for SOME ODD REASON realize what we did WAS idiotic.

I think you get the point now.

Berk itself has terrible weather, and it is always either too cold or two hot. Danger is around every corner; adventure, whether I want it or not. Sometimes a little questing is fun, a few scratches or cool scars that prove that you're one of the best, but there are some days I wished for a little bit of NORMAL in the world.

I'm going to write this book as if it was someone else telling the story; and you now can imagine that you are the fourteen-year-old daughter of the Chief of the Hooligan Tribe, instead of me. You've had a lot of adventures, but none like the one you're about experience...


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter One: Mud Pies on Thor'sday Thursday 

Eclipse thought that she didn't quite take after either of her parents. Her name was odd (though you may not think it is as odd as some) and so was she. Her hair was completely abnormal, a color between a dark blonde and light brown that didn't have a name. Her eyes were constantly changing color depending on what she wore from day to day, so they were sometimes a brownish-blue and sometimes green. Like her father, Eclipse's face was simply coated in freckles.

She was not the average Hooligan Bog Burglar, though she always tried to be. She worked hard in training, and she was bit clumsy, always tripping over her feet at the wrong time. She wasn't skinny but she wasn't fat. If you looked at her you might think, "Oh, she's a Viking; and a good one at that!"

But that is not what the rest of the tribe thought of her.

This story begins on a Thor'sday Thursday in the middle of the month of July. It was humid, sticky, and a hard summer thunderstorm the night before had just made a swamp of Berk. Eclipse had already lost one of her boots in the mud and was looking desperately for it before the Viking training began.

"GIT ON YOUR FEET YA LOWZY LITTA PIG-STICKERS!" yelled the elderly trainer who couldn't get up on his own two feet while training his trainees. He was six and a half feet tall with a stomach like a couple of beer barrels and a wild look in his eyes. His beard was so long that it was tucked into his belt, and while the tip of it was a reddish-brown, it gradually grew grayer as it went up to his double chin.

"But, Gobber, we're knee-deep in mud!" wined Snitchbunny, one of the other girl students. "We can't move a bit in this-"

The teacher's chest bulged with anger, and he looked like a keg of four-hundred-and-twenty-six pounds of dynamite ready to explode. "I'VE TRAINED THREE GENERATIONS OF VIKINGS, SNITCHBUNS, AND NEVER HAVE I EVER SEEN A SORRIER LOT!"

"Does he always have to yell all the time?" Snitchbunny said to Eclipse, who had just given up on looking for her missing boot.  
"It's what he uses since he can't use his legs very well anymore, Snitch," Eclipse whispered back.

"You don't have to whisper," Snitchbunny giggled. "He's as deaf as a door nail!"

"SNITCHBUNS, I YELL BECAUSE IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO GET YOU FOOLS' ATTENTION!" Gobber shouted, making Snitchbunny wince. "AND I CAN HEAR YOU QUITE FINE, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!"

"My name is Snitchbunny," the girl wailed, "not Snitchbuns!"

Gobber shook his head with a groan, putting his huge hand over his face. He didn't know how in the name of Thor the Thunderous they ever let these feminine girlys from the Bog-Burglar Clan join the Hooligan Tribe.

It was quite simple, actually; the Chief of the Hooligan Tribe married Camicazi, the daughter of Chief Bertha of the Bog Burglar Clan. It was then that they joined forces and the Bog Burglars moved to Berk. Not everyone was pleased with this, but they were forced to get over their complaints.  
"GET OUTTA THE MUD AND LISTEN UP!" Gobber screamed. "YOU'D BETTER SUCCEED, 'CAUSE THIS QUEST IS AS EASY AS TAKING PIE FROM A MONSTROUS NIGHTMARE!"

A raised hand in the crowd of teenage boys and girls.

"YES, FEATHERBRAIN?"

"Isn't taking pie from a Monstrous Nightmare a bit difficult, sir?"

"MY POINT!" Gobber groaned. "I'M GLAD SOMEONE GOT IT RIGHT!"

These trainees were a bit late in their training. They had only gotten their dragons a month before, when, usually, they got their dragons at around age ten or eleven. But a lot had gone on the years before and they hadn't had the chance until a while afterwards. And the dragons were STILL not trained properly, which was why they had not accompanied the trainees on their training expedition with the almighty Gobber the Belch.

At that moment the teacher screeched in his loudest voice, "YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT THROUGH THE BERK SWAMPS AND BACK IN PRECISELY THREE AND A HALF HOURS, CATCHING AS MANY MADMUTT DRAGONS AS YOU GO! NOW, OFF WITH YA LADS-"

He paused as he saw the girls glaring at him, wondering what he had forgotten to mention. Then he remembered.

"-AND LASSIES!" he added quickly. "VICTORY OR DEATH!"

"VICTORY OR DEATH!" echoed all but two of the trainees.

Those two were Featherbrain and Snitchbunny, who were combing through their hair nervously and fingering their weapons. One of the boys from the back of the group and up and smiled a cheesy grin at Featherbrain. Eclipse promptly whacked him over the head with the hilt of her sword, and he ran off howling down the swamp.

Featherbrain rolled her eyes. "I hate those boys. All they do is annoy me," she groaned. "Thanks, Eclipse."

"No prob, sis," Eclipse replied, smiling.

They were not sisters, and definitely did not look it, for Eclipse was NOT as pretty as Featherbrain. They were just good friends, and sometimes called each other sisters because it sounded cool.

"YOU LASSIES HURRY UP AND GET ON YA FEET OR YOU'RE GONNA BE FED TO THE SKY DRAGONS!" Gobber shouted at the three girls who had not yet left to travel up the swamp.

Grumbling as they went, the girls waded even deeper into the swamp and pulled out their weapons so that they could catch the Madmutt Dragons. These dragons were small and quick, bright yellow or red in color, and were poisonous to all humans. If one bit you, you would die within the next twenty-four hours. No cure.

But they were Vikings! They weren't afraid of such danger, right?  
"AHHHHHHHHHHH!" screamed Featherbrain as a Madmutt dragon stared her in the face from the branch of an overhanging tree. It hissed and then jumped down into the thick swamp sludge.

"Stay calm!" Snitchbunny exclaimed, not obeying her own orders while waving her sword around like a drunk monkey with rabies.


End file.
